My users do word processing, spreadsheets, and electronic mail. And that's really it. We have some IBM AIX machines for servers, and they are rock solid and they get the job done.
How does Windows server help them do Word Processing, Spreadsheets and electronic mail any better than they do it now? Why should invest in the training when I have a solution that already works? The money I will spend on training could be used to buy a dozen new machines, or it could be used to give somebody a5% raise.
Plus, I run the risk that Microsoft will have one of their infamous little security problems that I'll have to drop everything and go patch. Who needs that?
I wonder if it might be more cost effective to move my company to Linux, pay the cost of training my people, and be done with this.
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I dont know what happen to you all Linux guys out there.. where ever a forum and discussion this 'Linux' word will appear. F**k off...
In the process of conversion - going from over 20 domains down to 2 - going to save the company millions... need I say more?
Linux is NOT basic user friendly (read support), and IS NOT Admin friendly. MS rules the roost. Easier to deploy and support, little training and XP on 2003 server is as stable as they come.
Personally there are no benefits to Linux at all as a front end business client. I know I am going to get a ton of flack for that but I am a MS guy and will continue to be.
BTW - I use both too for personal use, and I need to patch my Linux box too...
Linux is NOT basic user friendly (read support), and IS NOT Admin friendly. MS rules the roost. Easier to deploy and support, little training and XP on 2003 server is as stable as they come.
Personally there are no benefits to Linux at all as a front end business client. I know I am going to get a ton of flack for that but I am a MS guy and will continue to be.
BTW - I use both too for personal use, and I need to patch my Linux box too...
No wonder religous wars occur, given the zealous ferver people seem to feel about the "One True OS" - whatever that is to them!
The original poster had a very legitimate question: he wanted to know the business case for upgrading his servers to 2003. He didn't seem to be talking about putting linux on desktops (for the moment) and he didn't seem to managing 30 domains. Frankly, reaching a protective hand over your wallet when MS introduces a new licensing scheme seems like a prudent idea.
What improvements does 2003 make in a simple file/print server environment? They seem to be marginal. Gartner (and other) reports archived on this site support this.
Windows 2000 offered significant stability and managibility improvements over NT - no more weekly reboots! MS seems to have made the same "mistake" with 2000 that Novell made with Netware 4.11 - a product that handles its core functions so well, that, unless you need new extra feature, it's hard to make a case for upgrading to the next generation.
Would someone like to offer an answer the original poster? If he is still one of the very few on NT, I think there is a very good business case for upgrading; if not, I am still waiting to hear a convincing argument.
The original poster had a very legitimate question: he wanted to know the business case for upgrading his servers to 2003. He didn't seem to be talking about putting linux on desktops (for the moment) and he didn't seem to managing 30 domains. Frankly, reaching a protective hand over your wallet when MS introduces a new licensing scheme seems like a prudent idea.
What improvements does 2003 make in a simple file/print server environment? They seem to be marginal. Gartner (and other) reports archived on this site support this.
Windows 2000 offered significant stability and managibility improvements over NT - no more weekly reboots! MS seems to have made the same "mistake" with 2000 that Novell made with Netware 4.11 - a product that handles its core functions so well, that, unless you need new extra feature, it's hard to make a case for upgrading to the next generation.
Would someone like to offer an answer the original poster? If he is still one of the very few on NT, I think there is a very good business case for upgrading; if not, I am still waiting to hear a convincing argument.
I think it's all about what you need, I've just finished a big migration from nt to 2000 (20 to 3 domains) and everithing is doing better than ever now, however I had a W2k cluster with 30.000 shares and the w2k was suffering with boot problems during a failover, so I put W3K on it, I dont have the failover problem anymore and plus my users called to ask what is going on in the network cause the file server is much faster, the answer is nothing new at the network, the OS did the job. So, it's always about your enviroment and your needs.
In fact I see 2003 as XP designed as a server. And I dislike XP.
I agree, 2K was the best thing M$ ever came out with. It's hard to upgrade to 03 when 2K works rock solid.
Now for the client side. XP is the 03 client side. To my knowledge there is no 03 client other then XP. So the answer to his question about upgrading clients would be no, don't do it.
To answer his question about linux at the desktop. While I am a staunch lover, user and defender of linux. On the corporate desktop, other then developers, it does not have a place yet. I say this with love and devotion.
However, linux for the server side is fair game and *will* beat out M$ OS's, including 2K on a lot of different uses. Which 2k is also near and dear to my heart.
For firewalling and VPN, linux can not even be touched by M$.
If he was to upgrade, I would stick with 2K. You still have to buy the XP or 03 license. But just downgrade the OS.
I agree, 2K was the best thing M$ ever came out with. It's hard to upgrade to 03 when 2K works rock solid.
Now for the client side. XP is the 03 client side. To my knowledge there is no 03 client other then XP. So the answer to his question about upgrading clients would be no, don't do it.
To answer his question about linux at the desktop. While I am a staunch lover, user and defender of linux. On the corporate desktop, other then developers, it does not have a place yet. I say this with love and devotion.
However, linux for the server side is fair game and *will* beat out M$ OS's, including 2K on a lot of different uses. Which 2k is also near and dear to my heart.
For firewalling and VPN, linux can not even be touched by M$.
If he was to upgrade, I would stick with 2K. You still have to buy the XP or 03 license. But just downgrade the OS.
"Linux is NOT basic user friendly (read support), and IS NOT Admin friendly. MS rules the roost. Easier to deploy and support, little training and XP on 2003 server is as stable as they come."
The same can be said of MS Windows. The fact is that everyone has their bias towards one operating system or another. Linux is plenty user friendly because if I can use it anyone can. I'm not some rabid Linux freak as I make my living off of Microsoft. However, me being a geek I can't help but be pulled into the direction of Linux.
Both camps have their similarities and their problems. Pick which ever suits your needs.
The same can be said of MS Windows. The fact is that everyone has their bias towards one operating system or another. Linux is plenty user friendly because if I can use it anyone can. I'm not some rabid Linux freak as I make my living off of Microsoft. However, me being a geek I can't help but be pulled into the direction of Linux.
Both camps have their similarities and their problems. Pick which ever suits your needs.
If the user's tasks aren't going to change, you may not need to change over. However, if your servers are 5+ years old, you need to plan on new server hardware soon and then would be a good time to move to Windows 2000/2003. New hardware + improved OS will save money in the long run.
If you are looking at upgrading your hardware can I suggest you look at one of the commercial versions of Linux - Red Hat, Suse, etc - with Samba (http://www.samba.org then a mirror near you) which allows Linux to work as a Windows login controller.
I haven't set this up myself to see how it goes but all reports are that it is very effective especially if you are really only using the server for file and print services.
There are also fully featured mail servers included in most Linux distributions that allows you to avoid the massive costs of an Exchange server.
The other features normally associated with Linux like Apache, MySQL, PHP my even allow you to expand the network offering to include intranet features for your clients.
The training money will still need to be spent if you upgrade to Windows 2003 or Linux - you need to work out which training will last longer for your dollar.
This is just some options to consider when looking at changing the network if required - the old adage still applies "if it ain't broke - don't fix it".
I haven't set this up myself to see how it goes but all reports are that it is very effective especially if you are really only using the server for file and print services.
There are also fully featured mail servers included in most Linux distributions that allows you to avoid the massive costs of an Exchange server.
The other features normally associated with Linux like Apache, MySQL, PHP my even allow you to expand the network offering to include intranet features for your clients.
The training money will still need to be spent if you upgrade to Windows 2003 or Linux - you need to work out which training will last longer for your dollar.
This is just some options to consider when looking at changing the network if required - the old adage still applies "if it ain't broke - don't fix it".
I totally agress with Steve. I use Linux sometimes. I not an expert and I think I am even below a newbie. I want to learn, so I play with it. I am Windows Admin and I hate the fact that I have to patch the boxes every freakin week it seems. But in my network environment, you use it where it fits. If the shoe fits wear it, if it don't, don't try and put it on, cause it'll hurt your feet!
Since I've been running Linux, I've had to patch as many times as on my W2K/XP machines. We are looking at W2K3 only because our AD needs the improvements that this OS brings, and for E2K3 which fixes a lot of issues we are having with E2K. Neither OS set is perfect, and the idea of getting hit with a virus on Linux scares the wits out of me.
Overall, Linux is updated daily but I only update rarely; when an application that I am actually running needs a security update. Feature updates can wait, usually, until the next major release. I do update The Gimp and Mozilla quite often since they are on the fast track of adding nifty features.
But we're missing the point of the original question; do you need to upgrade? If you cannot think of a burning reason to do so, then answer is no. If your servers are ancient and in need of replacement and they're just file and print servers, buy new hardware and choose the mix of economy and reliability that meets your needs. What it often boils down to in a small business is what skills does your computer expert possess? It's way cheaper to buy Linux if your geek was raised on Linux. If he/she was raised in Windows, then that's your choice. You are paying your geek $30k to $90k per year, what difference does a few hundred dollars make in the purchase price of the server software, compared to the cost of hiring a new geek or retraining the one you have? I'm a bilingual geek using Windows and several flavors of *Nix and it is easy enough for me to see where each is suitable. It's pretty hard to beat the central management capabilities of a Windows domain using Active Directory and policies. It's what's for dinner on the desktop. BUT it is also hard to beat Linux for network management on a budget, web servers, mail servers, DNS, Logger, IDS and so forth. Using BOTH at the same time makes excellent sense -- I've just discovered "Snare" to send the Windows events over to a Linux syslog server where something useful can be done with those events. As you know, if you turn on auditing on Windows, it generates a flood of events and if all you have is the Event Viewer, beware! I get about a quarter million events per day and there's NO WAY you can use Event Viewer on a flood like that. Syslog on Linux handles it just fine and you can aggregate your servers into one gigantic event log which you can search (with Grep or more sophisticated tools/scripts) for useful information; at its most basic, "who deleted that file?" Easy as pie; grep the syslog file with the name of the file and the last thing shown will be its deletion and who dunnit. It's huge, but who cares? I've got it on a salvaged, four year old PC with a cheap, big disk. No way would I buy an expensive server license just to house some data that gets used a couple times a year.
But we're missing the point of the original question; do you need to upgrade? If you cannot think of a burning reason to do so, then answer is no. If your servers are ancient and in need of replacement and they're just file and print servers, buy new hardware and choose the mix of economy and reliability that meets your needs. What it often boils down to in a small business is what skills does your computer expert possess? It's way cheaper to buy Linux if your geek was raised on Linux. If he/she was raised in Windows, then that's your choice. You are paying your geek $30k to $90k per year, what difference does a few hundred dollars make in the purchase price of the server software, compared to the cost of hiring a new geek or retraining the one you have? I'm a bilingual geek using Windows and several flavors of *Nix and it is easy enough for me to see where each is suitable. It's pretty hard to beat the central management capabilities of a Windows domain using Active Directory and policies. It's what's for dinner on the desktop. BUT it is also hard to beat Linux for network management on a budget, web servers, mail servers, DNS, Logger, IDS and so forth. Using BOTH at the same time makes excellent sense -- I've just discovered "Snare" to send the Windows events over to a Linux syslog server where something useful can be done with those events. As you know, if you turn on auditing on Windows, it generates a flood of events and if all you have is the Event Viewer, beware! I get about a quarter million events per day and there's NO WAY you can use Event Viewer on a flood like that. Syslog on Linux handles it just fine and you can aggregate your servers into one gigantic event log which you can search (with Grep or more sophisticated tools/scripts) for useful information; at its most basic, "who deleted that file?" Easy as pie; grep the syslog file with the name of the file and the last thing shown will be its deletion and who dunnit. It's huge, but who cares? I've got it on a salvaged, four year old PC with a cheap, big disk. No way would I buy an expensive server license just to house some data that gets used a couple times a year.
Just remember that MS is hitting your executives with this "collaboration will make heroes of all of you and allow you to lay off another 500 FTEs" baloney. You HAVE to keep an ongoing project to justify why to stay, as well as why to go, if it comes to that.
And anyone who thinks Office XP/W3K collaboration will just fix everything and empower all their employees should try talking to a recent VSS user- up to now, MS's primary collaboration tool. And then polish off their backup plan.
And anyone who thinks Office XP/W3K collaboration will just fix everything and empower all their employees should try talking to a recent VSS user- up to now, MS's primary collaboration tool. And then polish off their backup plan.
This articule sounds like an advertisement for Windows 2003 more than anything else. It introduces nearly all the features of Windows 2003, and tells you to learn more about it.
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